Recently, the interest in Machine Type Communication (MTC) increases more and more. One of the representative examples is that a metering terminal manager exchanges data with a metering terminal equipped with a communication module which reads and transmit the metered power amount through wireless communication and manages the metering operation. Such an MTC may be applicable to the gas and water supply systems as well as power distribution. Furthermore, it is expected that its application range is continuously expanding.
As the main part of the MTC, the metering terminal measures the utilities such as electricity, water, and gas used by the user and transmits the measured utility data periodically. The MTC-enabled terminal (hereinafter, MTC terminal) is triggered, when it is necessary, to connect to a network for data communication other than maintaining the connection to the network, e.g. base station. That is, the MTC terminal stays in the offline state or sleep state to conserve network resource as far as possible and wakes up at a predetermined interval or only when necessary for data communication.
The MTC terminal is advantageous of small network resource consumption, applicability to diverse fields, and management easiness. Thus, its use is a growing trend.